Chapter 8

ORDINARY INCIDENTS OF A SIEGE.

'Dear Wahle,' said Dollie to a miner, who, with the assistance of several others, was carrying a great palisade past the spot where the children stood, 'please have you seen anything of my father? I've brought him a can of warm soup.'

'Warm soup!' said the man jocosely; 'why, the enemy cook enough of that for us, only they warm us in rather a different way. Well, child, your father is down in the moat with a lot of other men, bringing in wood that the enemy had piled up ready to burn us out. When they found their cannon could not knock a hole through at the Peter Gate here, they thought they would have a try what fire could do.'

'It looks,' said another, 'very much as if the enemy read their Bibles. Wasn't that what Abimelech did when he couldn't get round the people of Sichem any other way?'

'Ah, but when he tried it again at another place,' laughed Wahle, 'a woman dropped a stone on his head from the top of the tower, and that finished him.'

'May the same fate soon overtake Torstenson!' said a third.

'Oh, he'll never venture up here,' said Wahle. 'Don't you know the gout has him in tight grips? why, he can't even stir out of his arm-chair. His people have to play cat's paw for him, and burn their fingers just when he bids them.'

'I just wish,' said the other, 'that Torstenson might go into such a rage at not taking the town, that the gout might rise into his body. Then he would die, and a good thing for us!'

'Come, come!' said Wahle more seriously; 'we ought not to wish even our enemies such evil as that.'

The words were hardly uttered when a dozen musket-shots rang out from without the wall that surrounded the moat. Several balls whistled over the heads of the two children, and the miner who had just been rebuked fell with a cry of, 'Oh, I am killed!'

His comrades laid down the palisade they were carrying, picked up the wounded man, and bore him into the nearest covered way, where they laid him for the time in a sheltered corner. The two children, more frightened at the sight of the man's fall than at their own danger, were quite at a loss which way to go next. In another moment, however, Dollie forgot all her trouble as she caught sight of her father coming towards her, his arquebuse in his hand.

'You here, little one!' he cried, and hastily drew the children with him into the gallery, behind the protecting walls of which the combatants found shelter from the enemy's fire. 'A queer kind of supper,' he said, as he hastily gulped down the contents of the can. 'One hardly has time even to say, "Grant, O Lord, what I partake!" And yet I ought to be thankful, too, that I am here to drink my soup at all. How many miners, citizens, peasants, soldiers, and even young children, has this siege cost us already! St. Peter's churchyard is getting too small to hold them all.'

'Yes, father,' said Dollie. 'And poor Hofmann the woodcutter will never be able to eat any more soup. He fell down quite close by us as if a thunderbolt had hit him.'

'Hofmann!' said Roller hastily; 'your god-father, child, and my old friend? But,' he went on, 'who is that lying in yon dark corner?'

He rose and went across in that direction. As he did so, he caught the sound of a groan, and a feeble voice murmured: 'Ah, merciful Father, do not let the arch-enemy prevail against me, or what will become of my three boys, all of them stampers at the Prince's Shaft. If I must die, do Thou take under Thy care my wife and my four poor girls. They are at the coppersmith's house in the Erbis Street.'

'What is it?' said Roller, turning his dark lantern so that its light fell for a moment on the dying man's pale face.

Hofmann lifted his failing eyes towards the approaching figure, and said in a broken voice, and with long pauses between: 'Comrade, there is a cold Swedish bullet rankling in my vitals. Promise me, old friend, that I shall have an honourable burial; not in this shabby miner's dress, but in my new uniform. And when they lay me in my last resting-place, let the lads say: "A good journey to thee, old comrade!"'

'A good journey to thee, old comrade,' responded Roller heartily, as Hofmann, putting his hand to his side, stopped abruptly.

Conrad and Dollie both followed Roller's example, as he folded his hands on his breast and began to repeat the simple words of the 'Our Father' over the dying man. The hollow roar of the Swedish siege-guns outside, and the constant dull thud of the cannon-balls striking the great earthwork that covered the gallery, formed a strange contrast to the solemn little service within, beside one whose spirit was taking its flight.

'You have come at a most unfortunate time, children,' said Roller, when all was over. 'You had better stay here till things are quieter outside, for the stones and bullets strike just anybody at random, and make no difference between big and little. I will tell you when it is safe for you to go; stay here till I come back.'

As Roller turned to go, he felt his leg suddenly clasped in Dollie's little arms. 'Oh, do stay here with us, dear father!' sobbed the child. 'Something might happen to you like what happened to poor Hofmann there. And then mother and I couldn't live any longer--indeed we couldn't; we should be quite sure to die.'

But Roller gently loosened the little maiden's hold, saying kindly as he did so; 'Dollie must be quiet and good, and God will take care of father. We do not know whether we are safer in here or out under the clear sky; but the great God, our heavenly Father, can take care of us wherever we are. Whether I am at work in the deep mine, or in front of the Swedish guns, or sitting quietly at home with you and dear mother, death might come to me if it was God's will, and it will never come until it is His will. Dollie must try to remember this, and think that her dear father is doing his duty.'

When he was gone, Dollie said sadly: 'The hateful war! Why ever do the stupid soldiers make it? I am sure they would all rather sit by their stoves at home, or else stop in bed, than come to Freiberg and make us all so unhappy.'

Conrad thought for a minute or two, and then said: 'Yes, war is a very funny thing; the people who begin it never have any of the trouble. And then it soon gets so big they don't know what to do, because they can't stop it. My mistress says this war was begun because of religion, and they've been fighting for twenty-three years, longer than I can remember. I daresay they want to drive religion out of the world altogether, for I don't think anybody can ever expect to make people good by firing off cannons at them. Our schoolmaster says it's like cutting a man's head off to cure him of the toothache. But oh, Dollie, I sometimes feel so sad you can't think. You have a good father to love you and take care of you, and be very sorry when anything hurts you; but nothing in the world would make my stepfather happier than for some one to go and tell him I was dead. I always have to hide like a wicked thief when he comes, and I'm sure it is a great deal worse for poor mother than it is for me. Nobody but God knows how father uses her, and I daren't go and protect her.'

'Listen!' said Dollie anxiously. 'Hofmann is coming to life again down there in the corner. I can hear him breathing.'

Both children listened.

'That noise isn't Hofmann,' said Conrad. 'It comes out of the ground.' He laid himself down and listened again, with his ear close to the earth. 'I think it's the Swedes digging some more mines,' he said at last.

'What are they?' said Dollie. 'Like father's?'

'Oh dear, no!' replied the boy, proud to show off what he knew. 'Long passages they dig through the ground till they get underneath the city wall, or else one of the gates. Then the Swedes put a great box full of gunpowder in the end of the passage, and set light to it, and then--bang! they blow everything all up into the air together.'

'Oh, do come away directly,' said Dollie in a fright, 'or else we shall all be blown up.'

'Have you forgotten what your father told us?' asked the boy.

'Oh, no indeed!' said Dollie; 'but whatever shall we do? Oh, if father or mother would only come!'

Conrad ventured to one of the loop-holes to look out; it was but little, however, that he could discern in the thick darkness outside. Here and there he saw the gleam of a light or the flash of a weapon; at times some dark mass seemed to move before his eyes, or his ears were saluted by a mysterious sound, then all was silent again. Suddenly, on the side that lay open towards the town, two men entered the covered gallery, which was just at that moment untenanted by soldiers.

'As I tell you, Schönleben,' said a deep bass voice, 'the lad is dearer to me than almost any other in the City Guard. Cool, steady, and brave, experienced too as an old soldier, I have chosen him for these reasons to report to me from time to time how things go at the Castle and the Kreuz Gate. But I thank you all the same for your information, though what the prisoners say, especially about an old comrade, is not always to be trusted. Still, I will have the lad closely watched, and if there's the least sign of anything amiss, put him where he can do no further mischief.'

The commandant, for it was he, followed by the Burgomaster, stepped to the loop-hole from which Conrad had hastily withdrawn.

'This is our weak point,' continued Schweinitz--'the point at which the enemy would like to strike; but they shall find it a hard nut to crack yet, though gate and tower are little better than ruins. Ah! my friend, give me the devotion and bravery of the Freibergers before any number of bastions, if I am to hold the foe at bay. As things stand, our hopes of a speedy raising of the siege grow side by side with the progress of the Swedes. I would willingly have more certain news. I say, Schönleben, couldn't you find me some trustworthy messenger that I could send to the imperial marshal?'

The entrance of a man into the gallery cut short the answer.

'Well, Hillner, what is it?' asked Schweinitz.

'Your excellency,' replied the Defensioner, saluting, 'it is thought advisable, in order to strike with greater effect at the enemy's works before the Peter Gate, to open new loop-holes in the lower part of the Wetter Tower, those in the upper storey having been rendered useless by the enemy's fire.'

'Good!' said Schweinitz; and then, turning away from the messenger, he spoke aside with the Burgomaster.

Meantime Conrad sidled up to his former fellow-workman. 'Do stop with us now you have come,' he said, catching hold of the Defensioner's coat. 'The Swedes are digging another mine; just listen at them hammering. I guess we and this old wooden box shall all go flying up into the air together pretty soon.'

As Hillner laid his ear to the ground to listen, Roller entered with several pieces of wood under his arm.

'Now you two can go,' he said to Dollie and Conrad; 'it's quieter now. And here are a few sticks I've brought in out of the moat; take them home; when I come I'll bring some more.'

'Roller,' called the Burgomaster, 'you are exactly the man I wanted. Come to me as soon as you go off duty, we have something to say to you.'

'Very good, respected Herr Burgomaster,' replied Roller, and then accompanied his little daughter out of the gallery to see her safely started on her homeward way. 'Why, where is Conrad Schmidt loitering?' he asked in surprise.

The boy was standing by his friend the Defensioner, who now sprang up from the ground and hastened to his commanding officer. 'Your excellency!' he cried, 'down in that corner the Swedes can be distinctly heard tunnelling through the earth. They are almost under the gallery now.'

'Quick, then, to countermine them!' said Schweinitz, and immediately left the gallery to give the necessary orders. Then began a severe subterranean battle. Both sides made desperate exertions in the attempt to get the upper hand, and for very plain reasons the Freibergers did their utmost to steal a march on the enemy. Although the ground was frozen so hard that it had first to be thawed by the use of fire, two hours had not passed away before the untiring energy of the miners had driven a heading of tolerable length, the foremost man in which stood Roller.

'We too may yet find that this is our last day,' said Roller composedly to the man working behind him. 'Every man's day is coming, whether he likes it or not. And besides, if the Swedes can give up their lives for mere money, cannot we do as much for fatherland, and wife and child? Therefore to work with a will! So long as we can hear the Swedes tunnelling, there is no need to light the match.'

'Now the sounds have ceased,' he muttered to himself after a short interval. 'It will soon be all over with us.' And he picked and shovelled away with redoubled energy, lest his comrades should abate their efforts on noticing that the Swedes had ceased work.

'The earth gets loose and spongy,' he said a little later. 'We must be approaching the Swedish mine. Now then for water, and hot water first of all, so as to get through the earth the quicker!'

Some of the miners went above ground and passed a long trough through the heading. This they sloped and kept constantly filled with water, which rushed gurgling down at the lower end, for the purpose of drowning the Swedish mine. Among those busy bringing the water in firemen's buckets and other utensils, was the miller of Erbisdorf, who had harnessed a team of his donkeys into a large sledge, loaded with steaming hot water.

'Slow and steady wins the race,' was his greeting to Roller, as he pointed to his long-eared friends. 'Our wives are brewing away yonder as though they had their coppers full of good wort instead of water out of the Münzbach. Well, the Swedish tipplers are quite welcome to have it all in their mine.'

As Roller and the miller were just in the act of lifting the heavy cask from the sledge to the trough, a dull report was heard under the earth. The ground quivered, then opened, and a red stream of fire gushed forth, accompanied by clouds of smoke and stones. The Swedes had observed the presence of an unusual number of people at this point, and had exploded an already prepared mine. There was one loud, involuntary cry from those injured by the explosion, then all was still.

The dead might try to make their way out of the grave itself with as good hope of success as there was for the imprisoned Freibergers to force a passage through the mass of _débris_ that covered them; indeed, they could never have done it had not many stout arms and willing hearts aided in their desperate toil.

'Thirteen men and four beasts of burden!' sorrowfully exclaimed Roller, who had himself escaped destruction as though by a miracle. 'And my brave old comrade, the miller of Erbisdorf, gone at last. We two were carrying the very same cask of water, yet here am I, while he is gone. Ah, it is indeed true, "The one shall be taken and the other left."'

'I say, neighbour Roller!' cried a muffled voice that seemed to come from the depths of the earth, 'help me on to my legs again, for mercy's sake. Here are clods, and stones, and bits of wood jamming me in on all sides; and here's a donkey's head, and I declare he's trying to prick his ears!'

With Roller's help the worthy miller was soon landed once more on _terra firma_. He found himself severely shaken and bruised, but not otherwise injured, and begged his comrade to see him safe home. Although his body was in pain, his spirit was by no means cast down. When he learned that besides killing three men and severely wounding five others, the exploded mine had cost the lives of two of his donkeys, he remarked: 'Ah, ha! Then they too have died for their fatherland, and will sleep in the temple of fame. I can tell you one thing, though; if the flour does choke us millers up a bit, I'd ten times rather have to do with that than with your Freiberg earth. There's something so big and massive about everything belonging to war, you very soon get enough of it. What will my Anna Maria say when she sees her husband brought home like a flattened pancake?'

As soon as Roller had seen his friend safely housed, and had made himself presentable, he hastened back to the Peter Gate, which seemed, as he approached it, to be all in flames. The wood and twigs the Swedes had piled against the defensive works before the bastion, had been set on fire. The rising flames cast a dreadful glare around, destroyed several of the works in question, and set fire to parts of the tower above the gate, which, falling into the covered gallery in rear of the bastion, threatened to set that too in a blaze. The besieged were able to avert this last calamity by the steady use of water, though the enemy pressed them hard all the time with artillery-fire and hand-grenades.

'The Swedes have set all the elements to work against us,' said Roller to himself. 'They have cut off our water supply, made war on us under the earth, tried to blow us up into the air, and now they turn against us the might of fire. And side by side with these great powers of nature stalks the pale phantom of death.'